Chapter III: The Skin Map

No mortal can look on death unmoved. Savage or civilized, Christian or pagan, a great awe, a questioning wonder thrills the spirits of all who stand in the presence of the dread, unsolvable mystery, death. The soul asks questions that cannot be answered, that the ages have left unanswered. And, as Thure and Bud now stood, with uncovered heads, looking down on the quiet, peaceful face and the motionless, rigid form of the dead miner, the world-old awe and wondering concerning death thrilled their hearts. For a couple of minutes neither spoke, neither moved. Then Thure's eyes sought the face of Bud.

"He is dead," he said solemnly.

"He is dead," answered Bud, not moving his awed eyes from the still face.

"Dead!" and Thure bent and reverently straightened out the bent legs and arms and smoothed back the matted hair from the forehead. "Dead, yes, as dead as a stone; and yet a few minutes ago he was breathing and talking! What a queer thing life is anyhow! Well, it won't do neither him nor us any good to stand here thinking and talking about it. Now we must get the body to the house and give it as decent a burial as possible. I'll carry the body across the saddle in front of me. Come, let's hurry. I am getting anxious to have it over."

For the moment, so great had been the shock of the miner's sudden death, Thure and Bud had forgotten all about the dead man's marvelous tale of the Cave of Gold; but now, as Bud stooped to help lift the body from the bearskin, his eyes caught the yellow glow of the gold nugget, which lay on the skin by the side of its unfortunate finder, and the sight recalled the wondrous tale.

"What do you think of his story about finding that nugget in a cave where the floor is covered with gold nuggets as thickly as pebbles on the bed of a stony river? Do you suppose it is true or, just one of the queer notions that sometimes come to the dying?" and Bud looked wonderingly from the nugget to Thure's face.

"Great Moses, I forgot all about the gold!" and Thure's face flushed with excitement. "Quick, let's get the body on the grass and then we'll have another look at the nugget. That was a powerful queer story he told; but it might be true. And if it is true," and his eyes sparkled, "then we've just got to go to the mines and hunt up our dads and the others and get them to help us find that cave."

In a moment more they had lifted the body off the bearskin and had laid it down on the grass; and the gold nugget was in their hands.

"Glory! But isn't it heavy?" and Bud balanced the nugget in one hand. "And it looks and feels and weighs like gold! It must be gold."

"It sure does look like gold," agreed Thure. "It looks and feels just like the nuggets dad sent home, only larger. Oh, if we only could find the cave where it came from! Let me see, he said that it was in the Golden Elbow of Crooked Arm Gulch, in Lot's Canyon, near a white pillar of rock and a big tree that we must climb to the third limb--a mighty queer place I call that to find a cave! I reckon he must have been lunaticy," and Thure turned a disappointed face to Bud.

"Well, he certainly found gold, and this proves it," and Bud tossed the big nugget up in the air and caught it as it came down, "to say nothing of the five thousand dollars' worth of gold nuggets that he claims his murderers stole from him. But, didn't he say something about a map, a skin map, that would tell us how to find the cave?" and his face lighted.

"Yes, yes, that was the little roll of white skin I pulled first out of the bag," and Thure's eyes searched eagerly the ground. "Here it is!" and, stooping quickly, he picked up the little roll of white parchment-like skin that he had pulled out of the little bag and dropped on the ground, and began unrolling it with fingers that trembled with excitement, while Bud crowded close to his side, his eyes on the unrolling piece of tanned skin.

The skin was some ten inches long by seven inches wide, of a somewhat stiff texture, and tanned so that it was nearly white. On the inner side an unskilled hand had rudely drawn a map; and beneath the map was written the words:

Map, showing the location of the Cave of Gold in the Golden Elbow
of Crooked Arm Gulch, which opens into Lot's Canyon near the white
pillar of rock and the big tree, made by John Stackpole, the
discoverer of the Cave of Gold.--1849.

In the lower left-hand corner of the map was a rudely drawn tree, with three huge limbs, and, from near the end of the upper and third limb, an arrow pointed slantingly downward, away from the trunk of the tree. In the lower right-hand corner was a hand holding a flaming torch. Between the tree and the torch was a cross, marked with the four main points of the compass. In the lower left-hand corner of the map itself was a small circle, marked "Hangtown"; and from there a crooked line trailed in a northeasterly direction to the upper right-hand quarter of the skin, where a map of Lot's Canyon and Crooked Arm Gulch was drawn with considerable detail.

For a couple of minutes the two boys studied this map in silence, while the conviction that the Cave of Gold was no deathbed hallucination, but a wonderful reality, grew upon them; or else, how came the skin map, which evidently had been made many days ago?

"Hangtown!" and Thure pointed excitedly to the name on the map. "That's the name of the mining camp where dad was when he wrote last. And here," and his finger followed up the trail marked on the map, "is Lot's Canyon! and the Big Tree! and Crooked Arm Gulch! and the Golden Elbow! and--and this black spot, marked 'cave,' right at the point of the Golden Elbow, must be the Cave of Gold! Great Moses, but I believe the miner did actually find that Cave of Gold, just as he said he did!" and Thure's eyes and face glowed with excitement.

"So do I," Bud agreed emphatically. "The skin map, the gold nugget--why, even his murder! all go to prove the truth of his tale. The robbers killed him to get this map. They could have got the gold without killing and got away all right; but they knew of the Cave of Gold and the map--the miner said he told them--and, expecting to get the map along with the gold, they killed him to get him out of the way, so that they could have all the gold in the cave to themselves. Say, but let's hurry home and tell our mothers. They can't refuse to let us go to the mines now! And we must start just as soon as possible. Come," and, for the moment, in his excitement, forgetting the dead body of the miner, he started to mount his horse.

"But, we can't leave him there!" and Thure pointed to the body. "Just help me to get him up on the horse in front of me and then we'll get home as soon as possible," and, picking up the little buckskin bag, he slipped the nugget and the map back into it, thrust it into his pocket, and soon, with the help of Bud, was on his horse, with the body of the dead miner in front of him.

Bud now quickly threw the grizzly bearskin back on his horse, jumped into his saddle, and the homeward journey was resumed.